


Questioning Loyalties

by Tarlan



Category: Total Recall (1990)
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-18
Updated: 2008-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:04:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kuato's last message to Tony was 'Save Richter'. Doug Quaid wants to know why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Questioning Loyalties

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Deutsch available: [Questioning Loyalties (German)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/130097) by [Tarlan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan)



> This story is for ANNE, who has translated some of my Michael Ironside stories into German for German fans to (hopefully) enjoy! This also meets the LJ smallfandomflsh prompt #9: Secrets.

Mars Security Officer Michaels watched as the elevator carried Melina out of his reach. He slapped his thigh in frustration and glanced around, hoping to find some way of stopping the elevator before she escaped.

"What the hell..?"

Tentatively, the security guard reached out and picked up the black, cloth-covered object lying near the edge of the elevator shaft. He gasped in shock and dropped it to the ground as his mind registered the hand protruding from one end.

"Michaels!"

Michaels spun away from the gruesome object, his eyes trying to pierce the dark shadows as he searched for the owner of the weak, pain-filled voice. A shadow moved and Michaels stepped towards it, fumbling for the flashlight attached to his utility belt. He stopped, flicked on the switch and illuminated the ground ahead of him. The circle of light followed a trail of dark, blood-red liquid until it fell upon a pair of legs. Suddenly, Michaels knew what he had found. He yanked the radio from his belt.

"Oscar-651, get a med-team here immediately. It's bad. Real bad."

"Oscar-651, receiving you, over."

Michaels dropped to his knees by the wounded man, his knees slipping in the pool of blood that expanded with every passing second. He stripped off his belt and made a tourniquet around one arm then stripped Richter's belt from the prone man to use on the other.

"How...?"

Michaels shook his head in horror, not really expecting an answer but suddenly afraid Richter might provide one. Somehow, Richter had lost both arms, amputated raggedly from just below each elbow. The sound of running feet drew his attention from the deathly-pale agent and he relinquished his place to a grim-faced med-tech. Grabbing a sheet from the top of the stretcher and, pushing the horror from his mind, Michaels made his way back towards the edge of the elevator shaft. He placed the severed arm on the sheet and then searched the surrounding area with his flashlight until he spotted the other. By the time he had wrapped both objects, the med-team had sedated Richter and were busy lifting him onto the stretcher. Michaels held out the bloody bundle, seeing the younger of the med-tech's whiten as the man realized what was held in his grasp. The older med-tech placed the bundle at his patient's feet and then set the stretcher in motion.

An explosion rocked the ground beneath them, followed by a deep rumbling as the ancient, alien machinery awoke from its centuries-long sleep.

****

It took several attempts before Richter could force open his eyes for his eyelids felt as if they had been welded together. He blinked rapidly trying to sharpen the unfocused image of brilliant white walls and silver machinery. Moving his head slightly, he tried to raise a hand so he could rub the sleep from his eyes. Nothing happened. He tried again, willing his hand to reach up but he could feel no response. Richter attempted to lift his head so he could look down the length of his body but he was too weak. His breathing came harder as he fought down the panic, a harsh buzzer sounding nearby. Moments later, a white-coated man stepped into his line of vision, the serious face frowning in concern.

"I can't move..."

"It's okay. You're in a stasis machine. You had a bad accident. Do you understand?"

"Accident?"

The white-coated individual smiled strangely. "Yes. An accident."

The man fussed around his patient, checking read-outs from the myriad computer displays and talking softly to himself. Richter tried to form words but his mouth felt as if it were filled with cotton wool.

"What...sort of...accident."

The man stopped and moved back into Richter's line of sight. "You had a fight with an elevator - and lost."

"Elevator? What elevator?"

Richter exhaled in annoyance as he heard the man's footsteps recede without giving him an answer. The swish of an automatic door cut off the sound leaving him in silence but for the quiet whirl of medical equipment. Eventually, he must have slept again.

Whispering voices echoed around the quiet room.

"I think he's waking up."

"Shhh."

Richter opened heavy eyelids and became aware, instantly, of the small crowd gathered around his bed. His eyes snapped open fully as his worst nightmare was realized but he clamped down hard on the fear as a mutant leaned over him, his grotesquely misshapen face less than a foot from Richter's. They stared into each other's eyes. The mutant's narrowed in puzzlement and then his face relaxed as he recognized the failed attempt to conceal fear. He grinned at the paralyzed man in a way that gave Richter no reassurance whatsoever as a female voice broke the silence.

"I still say we should have killed him."

The mutant smiled down at someone outside of Richter's current line of vision but he was able to move his head sufficiently to make out the small female hooker from the Last Resort; she frowned in annoyance. Richter knew that Thumbelina had seen too many of her friends die at the hand's of Cohaagen's forces, and that she had personally witnessed the brutal slaying of Mary, a fellow prostitute from Venusville.

"Kuato wanted him alive," stated the misshapen mutant.

"He murdered Kuato - and George."

"That doesn't change things. Kuato wanted him alive."

"Kuato never mentioned this to anyone else, Tony. Not even to Melina," someone else whispered harshly.

"He didn't have time. He sent a message just before he was killed. A psychic message." Richter recognized Tony's voice.

"Are you sure it wasn't just lack of oxygen to your brain that made you think you had a message?"

"I'm certain." The misshapen mutant called Tony indicated towards the bed. "Somehow he's involved in all this, and until we know what part he plays then he has to stay alive."

"All what?" Richter demanded.

****

Tony turned back to face the paralyzed agent and almost fell into the bottomless depths of the dark eyes. Not for the first time, he wondered what it was about the cold enforcer that made all his senses tingle in warning. The voice was deep and velvety, the eyes dark and mysterious with little emotion shining from the hidden depths. Richter was an anomaly, an enigmatic stranger who had appeared as Cohaagen's right-hand man only a few short months earlier. No-one knew where he came from although rumor had it that he was from one of the Jovian colonies. Possibly Ganymede or, worst still, from Europa.

Europa had started out as a penal colony, with its prisoners forced into a life of servitude mining the Jovian moon in back-breaking, soul-destroying shifts. Children were born and raised with the same status as their parents and their only way off-world was to become more ruthless than the people around them. If Richter was a native Europan then Tony could fully understand why the man had become so brutal.

"All what?" Richter demanded again, his voice a fraction stronger this time.

Tony smiled at the repeated question. All traces of fear had vanished from the strong, angular features leaving a coldness behind that would have chilled Tony to his soul if he hadn't known Richter was paralyzed from the neck down in the medical stasis field.

"Hey, what's going on in here?"

Doug Quaid sailed through the doorway with a grace that belied his size, his heavily muscled frame ambling over towards the med-table where Richter was cocooned inside the stasis field. Quaid gazed down at the man who had spent a good part of the past three weeks trying to kill him, noticing the way the dark brown eyes narrowed in puzzlement.

"Quaid," Richter stated nastily.

The deep brown eyes widened as the name triggered his memory of that last encounter with the giant. He had been thrown off the elevator but still managed to hold on tight to the other man. Suddenly, Quaid was holding him by the wrists and a glance upwards had revealed the solid material of the next floor coming towards him. Barely had he found time to shout out before his arms were ripped from him and he was falling backwards to what he thought was certain death. Yet somehow he had survived the fall and had dragged his mangled body away from the edge of the elevator shaft. The rest was a blur of pain as he felt his life-force pour from his body.

"My arms."

Quaid deliberated over whether he should tell Richter about his arms or whether he should let the cruel agent suffer. His alter-ego, Hauser, would have said nothing, wanting to prolong Richter's distress but Douglas Quaid had learned compassion.

"The medics saved your arms." He shrugged at the confused expression. "The wonders of modern technology - and a security guard who wasn't afraid to hunt around in the dark for severed limbs."

"That's why I'm in stasis."

The white-coated doctor shoved between the people to check the displays. "Not exactly. You fractured your spine in the fall. You're a lucky man, Richter. Anyone else would be permanently paralyzed but you will be back on your feet in less than a week. Now, would everyone please leave the room."

"Doctor Travis?"

"That includes you, Mr. Quaid."

Travis waited until the room was empty and then began to adjust some of the controls. He glanced up at Richter's sudden in-drawn breath. "That hurt?"

The agent glared at the Doctor, his expression saying more than a thousand words. "You know it does."

"Well, as the saying goes. No gain without pain."

"I don't like you very much. Doctor."

"The feeling's mutual."

****

Quaid glanced at the computer disks spread out across Cohaagen's desk in date order. He'd found them in a box labeled Europa, and some hidden memory from Hauser rose up to warn him that this was important. Some instinct warned him that he would find the answer to one of Cohaagen's dirty little secrets on one of these disks. He spent the next few hours checking through each disk with a growing sense of concern. Hours later, he had a partial answer and he called in his co-leader of the Mutant resistance.

"Melina."

He called her attention to the disks and waited until she had sat down beside him before he placed the first one into the slot, quickly accessing the part that had interested him most of all. The screen on the desk flickered into life and he could see Melina recognized the room on the viewer as Cohaagen's office. Vilos Cohaagen was sitting behind his desk, in the same seat that was now occupied by Quaid. The Mars Colony Administrator looked up from his desk and watched as a cloaked figure flanked by two Security Officers approached. They came to a halt in the middle of the room.

Cohaagen ordered the guards to leave the room and then stepped around the desk until he stood in front of the cloaked figure. He reached out to push back the hood. Quaid recognized the face - it was Richter, but not the fanatical creature he had come to know over the past few weeks. This unknown Richter was still tough and yet there was something almost vulnerable about him too.

Cohaagen stepped back from the man. "Take it off."

The cloak dropped to the floor. The inspection, both visual and physical continued until Cohaagen had satisfied himself.

"Perfect. I just hope you're worth the price I paid."

The screened blanked out and Quaid watched Melina's reaction to the video disk.

"Richter's a slave?"

Quaid nodded his head and indicated several more disks. "I found documents. Richter's grandparents were criminals sentenced to Europa Penal Colony. He spent most of his life clawing his way up from the mines, becoming one of a growing number as a voice for the Europan freedom movement. Cohaagen bought him from the Director of the Corporation just over eight months ago after an attempt to overthrow the Europan government failed."

"If you're hoping I'm going to feel sorry for the bastard then think again. He's nothing more than a sadist."

"He was a slave on Europa, treated worse than the people of Venusville."

Melina's dark eyes flashed with anger. "And was Benny any different?"

Quaid let his memory drift back to the mutant cab driver who had acted like an innocent caught up in the conflict until the final betrayal that had led to the rebel leader's death.

"Benny was different. He had made his own choices. He chose to betray Kuato and the others." Quaid saw her pensive look and waited until she came to a decision.

"We'll call in the others. We should let them see this."

Quaid waited in Cohaagen's office as the other's filed in, recognizing many of his newfound mutant friends from the Last Resort. They stopped bickering as soon as Quaid held up his hand and called for silence. Melina came forward, exasperation written across her beautiful features and Quaid could understand her reluctance to speak on Richter's behalf. She indicated towards the stocky frame of the mutant with the misshapen head, Tony.

"The psychics can't find any other message in Tony's mind. There was just the one short burst from Kuato. Save Richter. That's it. Nothing more." She shook her head. "But Quaid has discovered something."

Quaid looked around the room at each individual, drawing them into a semi-circle around him. "Kuato was in telepathic communication with Tony when the Mars Security Forces gained access to the base. We thought he was dead after Benny riddled him with bullets but he wasn't. He told Tony to start the alien reactor. Anything else he might have said was lost when Richter finished him off."

An angry murmur rose with murderous fury aimed at the dark Enforcer and Quaid had to yell to be heard above the voices. "You are missing the point." The voices grew silent but Quaid could sense the hatred hanging heavy in the air. "Richter was there. Kuato was reading minds and Richter was there. He must have seen something in Richter's mind. Something important enough for him to send his last thought to Tony. Save Richter."

Quaid gazed around the semi-circle, reading the angry but resigned acceptance of this explanation. It was Thumbelina who broke the silence.

"Okay. I'll go with that - for now - but once you have Richter's secret then he's mine. I have a lot of friends to avenge."

Quaid felt his heart tighten in his chest. There had been a moment after the death of Kuato when he had hated Richter with all of his heart and soul yet, now, he could not bear the thought of handing the man over to an angry mob. However, this was not the time to try and reason with them.

"Once Richter has served his purpose then we'll talk about it."

****

Richter flexed his arms then wiggled his fingers, grunting as pain flared along the whole length from shoulder to wrist. Even his fingers were stiff and sore but at least he still had them. He reached out and tried to pick up the cup of water by his bedside but his fingers wouldn't obey his commands.

"Physiotherapy." Richter turned sharply to find Douglas Quaid watching him from just inside the room. "The Doctor said you would recover 90% of your co-ordination and dexterity with physiotherapy."

"What about the other 10%?"

"Too much nerve and muscle damage. Even modern technology cannot repair it all."

Richter wrinkled up his nose up and sniffed once in a unconscious gesture and glanced down at the thick metal band around his chest that held him captive to the bed now the medical stasis shield had been removed.

Over the past two days he had been given plenty of opportunity to think and he had spent the time trying to find someone to blame for trauma he was now facing, and for the weeks of anger and frustration that had come before. There were plenty of targets. Cohaagen, Hauser/Quaid, Helm, Lori, Melina, even the tiny prostitute from the Last Resort. They had all played their part in his downfall, although some had played a greater role than others - namely Cohaagen and Hauser/Quaid.

Except, whenever Richter thought he hated Quaid for the intimacy he had shared with Lori, he remembered it was Cohaagen who had ordered her to pose as Quaid's wife. Then, when he thought he hated Quaid for besting him, for making him look like an imbecile time and again, it all came back to Cohaagen's plan that he'd created with Hauser; the suitcase filled with money, tickets and forged papers; the holographic watch and the large female disguise. He and Lori had been stooges to add realism to the plan created between the corrupt Administrator and Hauser to help Quaid infiltrate the Mars Liberation Front and get close enough to their elusive leader, Kuato, in order to kill him. That plan had worked and Kuato was dead, killed by Richter's own hand, and yet it had all backfired on Cohaagen too.

Inevitably his thoughts turned back to Lori as he remembered finding her perfect body lying dead in the elevator lobby with the neat hole drilled through her forehead, almost in keeping with her immaculate appearance. His eyes had traveled across her beautiful face, his fingers had traced a path down one velvet cheek and he had snapped. Quaid had killed her, not Cohaagen or Thumbelina or any of the other disgusting mutants on Mars. His eyes flared with renewed hatred. Quaid had killed Lori. Quaid had killed his beautiful Lori... The words repeated themselves over and over, fueling the already burning hatred.

"Richter?"

Richter schooled his features back into an impassive mask as Quaid approached him. Quaid would pay for Lori's death and Richter had the perfect idea on how the debt would be paid in full. All he had to do was bide his time.

****

Thumbelina stamped her tiny feet in annoyance, and if Quaid hadn't been feeling equally irritated then he might have found it amusing. Another two days had passed with no information extracted from Cohaagen's enforcer, and her impatience was beginning to annoy him. Quaid wasn't sure why he wanted to take it slow with Richter and, certainly, the original part of him that was Hauser would not have waited for Richter to spill all his secrets but he wasn't Hauser anymore. Admittedly, he could tap into the cruelty that came from that part of his personality but Doug Quaid's persona had shown him new emotions and feelings that he simply could not turn off even if he had wanted to. Quaid was a better person that Hauser. He had all of Hauser's strengths but had tempered it with compassion.

"Why don't you interrogate him? Kuato was not the only psychic and Cohaagen's torture chamber is here in this complex if a psychic doesn't appeal."

Quaid sighed softly, the only visible sign of his impatience. He looked to Melina, his look begging her to answer Thumbelina's challenge, and Melina obliged with a soft sigh of her own.

"We need to know what we are looking for before we try to interrogate him. He's too weak to survive a prolonged contact with Cohaagen's machines - or any of the psychics. We just have to wait a few more days."

****

Richter smiled in welcome as Quaid joined him in the medcenter but then he frowned as he recalled his promise to exact revenge on Quaid for Lori's death. The conflict inside him seemed to be growing daily with memories overlapping, pulling him first one way and then another and yet they could not both be real.

"How are you feeling today?"

He narrowed his eyes, wondering if this was a trick question as Doctor Travis would have given Quaid a report on his condition. Was Quaid trying to ascertain his health or was there a more sinister reason for the inquiry? Until now, no-one had tried to interrogate him so perhaps they were waiting for his condition to stabilize. He decided on a neutral response.

"I'm improving."

Quaid smiled and nodded his head slowly, as if pleased with the answer. It occurred to Richter that it was the type of answer Quaid might have expected from an enforcer such as himself; one that told the truth yet said nothing at all.

"How are you finding the exercises?"

"Painful."

The small twitch of Quaid's mouth almost went unnoticed but Richter had been interested to see his response to using a nonstandard answer. He wanted to see if learning of his pain would increase Quaid's compassion for him, perhaps even throw the man off guard so he could use that weakness against him later. At least, Richter thought that was his plan but he was still caught within the increasingly conflicting thoughts and memories, as if he was two separate people inside one body.

***

Quaid stared hard at Richer, now convinced more than ever that Richter had not been totally indoctrinated by Cohaagen. The thought brought another to the forefront. At the time, Cohaagen had seemed genuinely upset at Richter's handling of the escape from Earth and the resulting incidents on Mars though the part of Quaid that had been Hauser had decided it was all a ruse by Cohaagen to regain Hauser's trust. He had suspected Richter of being under orders in the pursuit but now he was not so sure. Richter was not the mindless agent Cohaagen had painted him to be - but then neither was he the co-operative slave.

"Tell me about Europa."

The tall forehead creased up in a frown as if wondering why would Quaid want to know about one of Jupiter's moons. Richter was a smart man and he must know that Quaid had enough to deal with here on Mars especially after overthrowing the administration. Earth had already started asking questions and Quaid knew the administration there was likely trying to decide if they needed to mobilize Earth's planetary forces to take back the colony.

"It's one of the Jovian moons - and a penal colony."

Quaid amended the question slightly. "Tell me about life on Europa."

Richter looked more confused but he hid it well, smoothing his brow and raising one expressive eyebrow. "There are no indigenous life forms on any world except Earth."

Quaid frowned as he wondered whether the agent was being deliberately obtuse. "No. Tell me about your life on Europa."

This time the whole of Richter's expression showed his confusion and somehow, Quaid knew it was not an act.

"Is this a new interrogation method, asking me questions I can't answer to fool me into answering those I can. Well, I'll play along for the time being. I've never set foot on Europa."

"Where were you born?"

"Venus Colony, sector 5 - Abbotsville to the more enlightened."

"And your parents?"

Richter sighed heavily in exasperation and Quaid could see that he was tired of this game already. "Why don't you read my file and save us both a lot of wasted time and effort."

"Perhaps that's not such a bad idea."

He noticed Richter looked even more confused as Quaid turned on one heel and strode out of the room. On the monitor just outside the door, Quaid saw Richter wrinkle his nose up again quickly as if to dismiss the conversation as unimportant but Quaid could tell that Richter couldn't quite shake off the unease the confrontation has raised inside him.

Quaid slowed his pace as he spotted Melina waiting for him at the end of the corridor.

"That was quick."

"But profitable."

Melina fell in step alongside her lover but her patience wore thin very quickly. "Are you going to let me in on it or--?"

"I need to check through Cohaagen's disks once more. Something's amiss. I can't explain it but I think Richter is another Quaid."

"Doug? What do you--?"

"He said he has never stepped foot on Europa - and I can tell he believes that's the truth."

Eight hours later, Quaid had his answer. The memory implantation had been as thorough as his own but there had been no deeper motive by Cohaagen to upset the fine balance between the real Richter and the enforcer. realized had wanted Richter to believe fully in the life that had overridden his own true memories. He was Carl Richter, Mars Agency Enforcer. He had a detailed recollection of his childhood on Venus and of his years of training in Agency techniques. However, these were another agent's memories, an agent who had been callously thrown out of an airlock once his usefulness had finished so he could not inadvertently betray Cohaagen's scheme. It was becoming very clear to Quaid that realized had intended a double-cross of Hauser, using him to get to Kuato and then having Richter kill them both. Except Hauser must have anticipated a double-cross and put measure s in place to save himself. The only confusing aspect was why he had chosen Richter for this task. He could have used any of his Mars operatives, or brought someone in from Earth.

"Is this Kuato's secret?"

"I don't know. Perhaps - perhaps not. I need to dig deeper now we've established Richter is a fraud."

****

Richter stretched to ease the pain from his back. The Doctor had promised to release him from restraint in a few days if he agreed to take things easy. He had readily agreed as the forced inactivity was giving him far too much time to think of Lori. He could still picture her beautiful face in his hands as he leaned over to kiss her after their love making. Her bright blue eyes would soften and he would pull her over to lay curled against his side, her head pillowed on his shoulder. She had been his wife and he had hated to let her go to Quaid despite Cohaagen's orders. He smiled as he remembered their forbidden trysts. If Cohaagen had ever found out he would have eliminated both of them as a liability - but now she was dead.

Her body had still been warm when he found her in front of the elevator doors and, for a moment, he had truly believed her to be unconscious - but Quaid had killed her. He had taken away the one pleasure in Richter's life, the only light in his darkness.

The door slid open to reveal Douglas Quaid and Richter frowned in confusion as he experienced a sudden burst of pleasure at the sight that jarred against the anger and grief he felt from losing Lori. Quaid had killed Lori - hadn't he? He allowed thoughts of Lori's lifeless body to fill his mind, hoping to drive away any remaining sense of comradeship with this man. He tried to draw up other memories of Lori, tried to focus on how they met, their wedding day - anything - but the images were hollow, like watching a video of someone else's life marching past. He could see her smiles, her shining eyes but felt no emotional connection with those events in the past, only with the recent memories that had no conflict in his mind.

"What have you done to me?" he snarled.

Quaid flinched slightly at the coldness in Richter's voice but, otherwise, made no answer. Instead, Quaid turned and beckoned to a figure standing out of sight beyond the doorway. Richter's eyes narrowed in suspicion as the woman entered the room. He could see only one side of her face for she kept the other side turned away from him. She turned to face him suddenly and Richter pushed back against the pillows in revulsion as he took in the disfigured flesh, bulging forehead and one enlarged, unshuttered eye.

"Zara is here to help you."

Richter gave Quaid a look of astonishment, unable to comprehend how this woman could possibly help me with anything. His breathing quickened as the woman approached the side of the medical couch and he tried to ignore her, concentrating instead on the strong features of his greatest adversary. With the restraints holding him down, he couldn't push her away.

"Zara is going to help you remember who you really are."

Richter barked out a short laugh, all too aware of the slight edge of hysteria creeping in that gave away too much of his inner turmoil. "I know who I am. You're the one living in a dream world, Hauser," he spat back, wanting to remind Quaid that it was Hauser's mind that was messed up.

Richter leveled his most malevolent stare on the young woman. "Don't. Touch. Me."

He was fearful and dismayed to elicit only a compassionate smile rather than the fear he had expected but ensured no sign of this was visible to the others. His eyes narrowed as he felt a slight tingling sensation deep within his mind. Panic overtook him and he tried to draw even further away from the woman but she followed him until her hand had reached out to stroke along his left cheek to his temple. With his head forced against the pillow and the restraint against his chest he had no choice but to endure her touch.

"No!"

The single word of denial slipped past his guard as her mental fingers teased along the pathways of his mind, toying with the images and emotions that leaped forward at her caress. His thoughts moved backwards through time, recalling scenes of death and destruction. Zara sighed as she witnessed Kuato's death through his murderer's eyes but she pushed passed this, moving further into the past. Together they witnessed the strange behavior of the large woman in the Mars Immigration and the chase on Earth through the subway system. Zara smiled as she discovered the love he had shared with Lori, lingering for a moment to dwell in the powerful light amidst all the dark emotions. Her face creased in pain as new memories of loss overpowered her and she saw the lifeless body held in gentle arms as time sped forward against her wishes.

She felt Quaid advancing a step towards them in concern even as she saw embarrassment cross the angular face followed seconds later by a sob of despair. Quaid stopped and waited as Zara concentrated harder, determined to halt the flood of memories that bled from the raw wound, and savagely pushing them back as she turned the tide of time and forced herself deeper into Richter's past.

A few months further back she found the place where the implanted memories joined almost seamlessly with the new experiences and discovered how even the petty jealousy of the original agent had been reflected in Richter's own thoughts. The psychic's trail had swept across cold anger where Hauser had been promoted over Richter to become Cohaagen's right-hand man yet the body it inhabited did not echo in frequency with the memories portrayed. She saw Lori in a new light, saw the calculating woman pleasuring her true lover, realized, before doing his bidding and reinforcing the memories of both Richter and Doug Quaid. Her heart almost broke to see Richter's mind recoil at the bitter betrayal from the woman he had believed he loved. However, the images of Mars were stronger than she had expected and she searched fruitlessly, sifting through the mental debris, looking for a tear in the fabric that would reveal the true Richter.

**

Quaid moved forward another step as he saw perspiration bead across Richter's forehead, his mouth contorting in pain. The same agony was etched across the psychic's distorted features and Quaid raised a hand to separate them but his hand dropped away as a beatific smile spread across the Zara's face as if to say hello to an old and dear friend.

**

Zara felt her heart quicken as her mind slipped through the tiny chink in the mental armor, following a dark path to where the slender tendrils of another being lay curled in upon itself. The new entity recoiled at her touch but then reached out hesitantly as she sent a wave of comforting thoughts towards it. Her mental fingers tightened around the other being, sharing her strength, drawing the other back along the dark pathway and through the hole in the shell of lies. Exhausted, she let go and pulled back into herself.

Strong arms caught her fragile body as she collapsed and Zara felt herself lifted and placed in a nearby chair. She focused on the worried features above her and smiled.

Quaid was glancing back at Richter, noting the peaceful expression on the now sleeping face.

"I found him," she stated softly. "But there was no strength left to communicate. I showed him the way to slip through a hole in the conditioning. Just a trickle but, in days, maybe only hours, he will have total recall."

Quaid nodded and clasped her small shoulder. "Thank you."

****

 **Epilogue:**

Quaid recalled the first time he took Richter up to the surface, seeing his shock at finding a verdant paradise in place of the red dust. The alien machinery that had lain hidden and silent, deep beneath the surface of Mars, had awoken and terraformed the entire planet. The giant oxygen recyclers were no longer needed and neither were the force shields. The avaricious companies who had kept the mutant population of Mars in abject poverty with high taxes for air and water had fallen, their services no longer required, and once the new Martians started growing their own food, their last dependency on Earth would be severed.

The tension between Earth and Mars was high, and Quaid was still uncertain if Earth would decide to launch an attack to take back the colony before they could become independent. Except Earth had its own problems still, and Quaid was well aware that some countries were more than willing to let Mars go and become allies with them instead.

"I have to go back," Richter stated softly.

Quaid nodded. The man beneath the cold-blooded Richter persona had surprised Quaid because he was every bit as dangerous and yet he was noble and compassionate, and a born leader with a strong sense of duty. That duty was pushing him back to Europa where he had been the leader of the Europan Resistance Army, slowly forcing the administration to offer better rights to those whose only crime was to be born on the Jovian Moon to either prisoners or the descendants of prisoners. Now it was easy to see why realized had chosen Richter, wanting to destroy the ERA before it could cause the same amount of damage as the Mars Liberation Front. His pettiness had wanted to see Richter completely destroyed by turning him into the very person he had been fighting against on Europa.

Richter leaned back against Quaid, allowing Doug to wrap his arms around the smaller man and hold him tight to his chest.

That had been another revelation, seeing the attraction between them flare into so much more once the false personal of the Mars enforcer had been stripped away by Richter's returning memories. This aspect of Quaid's personality had always been there, a secret buried far in Hauser's past but uncovered by the memory implantation, except Quaid didn't want to be Hauser anymore. He no longer questioned where his loyalties lay; neither towards the old Mars administration or to Earth. Instead he integrated Hauser's memories and reached out for the man he had come to love over these past few weeks.

As Quaid nuzzled the fine, dark hair, his thoughts turned to his own position here on Mars. Melina and Tony had taken joint leadership, leaving no place for a former-Cohaagen agent in their new administration. It had made things awkward between them and, now, Quaid could see the answer to this dilemma. He kissed the scarred temple, his body stirring in response to the man held in his arms.

"So when do we leave?"

END


End file.
